Here in Australia we have a strict -24 LUFS loudness limit for TV commercials. I was pulled up by the ad delivery outfit (Adstream) a while back for an ad that was too loud so have been very careful to make sure my ads are at The right loudness measurement ( use a waves plugin to measure)

The problem is my ads seem a little quiet compared to a few of the others. I have had a client mention it as well.

Is there a limiting/compression process I can use to get the perceived loudness up? Should I spend a bit of time reducing the level of peaks so I can squeeze a bit more out of the audio track?

At least here in the US, it is very rare to see ANY advert on TV or radio, even local market spots, that are not significantly compressed, limited, etc. to achieve maximum perceived "loudness" within the technical limits.